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PRT: Public Transit Of The Future?

April 14, 2003, 5am PDT

Thirty years in development, a Minnesota inventor debuted SkyWeb Express, a personal rapid transit (PRT) system that has some people excited about the future of public transit.

"After 30 years of laboring to perfect and sell the world on his futuristic public transit system, Minnesota inventor J. Edward Anderson on Thursday presented a shiny red cab that moves people along a silver track. Anderson's invention, known as PRT (for personal rapid transit) and more formally named SkyWeb Express, continues the tradition of Post-it notes, pacemakers, Honeycrisp apples and other Minnesota inventions, Olson said. "The problem with clogged streets has never been solved but I believe there is hope for that today," he said. As Anderson envisions it, cabs would operate on a guideway system elevated about 16 feet above clogged streets. Riders would mount a station platform, swipe a fare card through an electronic reader, punch in destination numbers on a keypad and then climb inside a three-seat cab slightly smaller than a Volkswagen Beetle. The system would be fully automated by computer, taking riders to their destinations nonstop while bypassing other stations along the way."